


Kissing Strangers

by Engineer104



Series: Royal Flush - a Prompt Fill Collection [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Canon Compliant, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Platonic Kissing, i can't believe that's a tag, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 23:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16842712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: Lance is unhappy with Lotor's presence on the Castle.For the dialogue prompt:  (31) “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”





	Kissing Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Lance, your logic makes no sense
> 
> Originally posted [here](https://sp4c3-0ddity.tumblr.com/post/168945004653/i-would-like-to-see-how-you-would-spin-number-31)

“Wait, the Besayans greet each other _how_?”

Allura took a very obvious very deep breath, eyes closed in false serenity, at Hunk’s stunned disbelieving question. “Like I already said, the Besayans greet _strangers_ at first meeting with a peck on the lips.”

“You’re kidding,” said Lance, his own eyes wide. Oh, was he relieved that _Hunk_ would tag-team with the princess on diplomacy _this_ round…

“I am not,” Allura told them. She folded her hands on the table, halfway through explaining the protocol that she and Hunk would have to take while treating with the Besayans. “It’s meant to communicate a willingness to trust and get to know each other, so while it is not _our_ custom – or yours”—she glanced at Hunk, smiling reassuringly—“in this case it is better to participate. Fortunately they’re not as touchy as others we’ve dealt with.” Her smile took on a very strained quality at some recollection; Keith was probably with her at the time, Lance guessed. “Still, under no circumstances are you to touch _any_ of their hands. Handshakes are gestures reserved for close friends, family, and lovers.”

“Great,” Hunk said. He looked faintly ill as he considered. “No shaking hands, just skipping straight to kissing.”

“Hmm, I wonder what baseball is like on Besaya,” Lance mused, flashing a grin at Hunk.

“I’ve met with Besayans, Princess Allura,” the fourth in their meeting piped up. Prince Lotor rested his elbow on the table, chin in his hand, looking relaxed despite the fact that he was still functionally their prisoner, albeit a very compliant and _mobile_ one. His odd colored eyes met Allura’s, and he added, “I would be happy to accompany you to this meeting.”

Lance rolled his eyes at Hunk while he resisted the urge to make some snappy comeback; while everyone else – even _Keith_ – seemed relieved enough to have their one-time pursuant aboard the Castle, Lance couldn’t help but be _suspicious_ that it was all some grand ploy to take over.

_“You’re just jealous because Allura actually likes him,”_ Hunk had pointed out.

_“Not true!”_ Lance had retorted. _“I just don’t think he’s trustworthy.”_

_“None of us really trusts him, Lance,”_ Pidge had said. She’d rolled her eyes and added, _“Besides, he’s powerless now. What’s he going to do?”_

_“Charm us all and steal the Castle right from under our feet?”_

Well, so far, everyone else was right, but so far, Lotor hadn’t had the chance to reveal his true colors…probably.

“Hunk can handle it,” Lance interjected loyally when Allura didn’t immediately.

No, she seemed to be _thinking_ about Lotor’s suggestion, but at Lance’s words she quickly agreed, “Yes, Prince Lotor, I think bringing you along so soon after you’ve joined us would not endear our cause to the Besayans, I’m sorry to say.”

Lotor glanced from her, to Hunk, to Lance, and back to her, and then he said, “You’re as correct as always, Princess. The Besayans suffered as much as anyone else at the hands of the Galra Empire.”

“Thank you for understanding,” Allura replied.

“Yeah, thanks,” Lance muttered under his breath. He ignored the sharp, reproachful look Hunk shot him in favor of narrowing his eyes at Lotor, still suspicious that he would try something.

* * *

“This is Lotor’s fault!” Lance decided when Hunk came down with a nasty – but not severe – illness the quintant before Allura’s scheduled diplomatic meeting with the Besayans.

“No, it’s definitely not,” Pidge told him. She held the biometric scanner – a nifty piece of Altean technology that endlessly fascinated her despite biology not being her ‘area of expertise’ – up to Hunk, slowly drawing it along his body while Lance hovered worriedly.

Hunk only sneezed.

“See?” Pidge said once the scanner beeped and its display flashed red. She held the screen up so Hunk, strong enough to sit up in bed propped against a couple pillows, could see.

Lance stood near her, glancing over her shoulder, though he couldn’t make heads or tails of the results. “I _don’t_ see,” he told her.

Pidge shot him a glance, then pointed to a number in the top right corner. “That’s the lymphocyte count,” she explained. At Lance’s confused eye roll, she sighed and added for his benefit, “Lymphocytes are white blood cells.”

“When did you reprogram this for human biology?” Lance wondered, impressed.

“Coran, Shiro, and I have been working on it.” She grinned and patted Hunk’s shoulder. “Hunk is our test subject now.”

“Great,” Hunk grumbled, a little softer than he would normally.

“So what _about_ his white blood cell count?”

“It’s a little higher than usual,” Pidge said. She touched that corner of the display, and the screen changed, showing a more detailed analysis. “Then there’s information on what antibodies are being released – quiznak this tech is amazing! And you don’t even have to do anything _invasive_ – and a breakdown of _specific_ white blood cell counts. So basically…Hunk probably has the flu.”

“There’s flu in space?”

“Uh, well, that’s the thing.” Pidge navigated back to what looked like a menu screen, and after a few more taps, she showed Lance and Hunk the display again. “It’s a virus that Galra carry but are immune to. Human immunity, on the other hand…” She then shifted her eyes sheepishly towards Hunk.

“You have to quarantine me, don’t you?” Hunk asked, right before breaking into a coughing fit.

“Well, it’s a little late for me, I think.” Pidge frowned and adjusted her glasses. “I’ve been in here for a while.” She glanced sideways at Lance. “Also I scanned you when you weren’t looking—”

“Hey!”

“—but you look fine. So you should probably get out now before you catch it.”

“This isn’t like…the Galra equivalent of smallpox, is it?” Hunk wondered worriedly, hands clasped together.

“This won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Pidge reassured him, but after a beat of consideration, she averted her eyes away from his face and added, “Probably.”

“Your bedside manner is not that great, Pidge,” Hunk said.

Pidge glared at him. “Anyway, my amateur opinion is that Hunk can’t go to that meeting with Allura.”

“Quiznak,” Lance said, gripping his chin with his hand.

“What?” Both Pidge and Hunk turned to regard him.

“This means she’ll end up taking _Lotor_ ,” he said, scowling and crossing his arms.

“No, she’ll probably take Shiro or you first,” Pidge said. She rolled her eyes at him and said, “Honestly Lance, I don’t trust him much yet either, but your reasons are pretty selfish.”

“ _Excuse_ —”

“But you should really give Allura a little more credit when it comes to choosing diplomacy partners, yeah?” With that, Pidge shot him one last glare and left with a quick promise to send Coran to check on Hunk again later.

After the door slid shut behind her, Hunk piped up, “How come no one’s asked _me_ how I feel about this?”

Lance looked at him and frowned, a prickle of shame hitting him. “Did you really want to kiss a bunch of strangers though?”

Hunk laughed, or tried to, for he fell into a nasty, wet-sounding coughing fit. Lance handed him a tissue and the glass of water Pidge brought him earlier, and after he drank and blew his nose, he said, “No, but if the alternative is being sick…”

“Hey, you can get sick from kissing people too,” Lance pointed out reasonably.

“With just a peck?” Hunk shrugged and said, “Anyway, Allura would be doing most of the talking—”

“As usual.”

“—so anyone that isn’t Pidge or Keith can fill in for me.”

“Keith I get,” Lance said, “but why not Pidge?”

“Can you imagine Pidge _diplomatically_ agreeing to kiss a few strangers?”

Lance pictured it…at least until his mental image of Pidge threw a punch across a little green man’s jaw. He snickered and said, “No, guess not.”

“Also, Pidge’s usual common ground is tech, but from Allura’s briefings, the Besayans don’t let science touch politics, so she would get very bored very fast.”

Lance nodded in understanding. “Makes sense,” he said. “Guess Allura will probably take Shiro then.” He smiled, satisfied with that conclusion.

At least until that evening, when Allura approached him after dinner and asked, “Lance, are you doing anything tomorrow?”

Lance grinned. “I have no plans,” he said.

“Good,” she said, and smiled. “I need you to take Hunk’s place at the diplomatic meeting tomorrow.”

Lance’s eyes widened, glee and dread combining to make his stomach a mess of nerves and anxiety. Allura touched his arm as she passed, and Pidge came up to him. She grabbed his elbow and hung off him, doubling over, and for a moment Lance worried she was choking, at least until she heaved a breath and _snickered_.

“Oh my God, Lance,” she said, and she laughed even harder. “You should see the look on your face!”

“Thanks, Pidge,” Lance grumbled, scowling at her. “I’m _so_ glad that the thought of me kissing a bunch of strangers makes you this happy.”

Pidge sobered up then and said, “Yeah, _that’s_ what’s funny about this.” Her eyes then darted past him.

Lance followed her gaze to see Lotor staring at him, a thoughtful frown on his face, as if sizing him up. Lance then pointedly turned his back to him, smugness seizing him when he remembered that Allura still chose _him_ over a half-Altean prince…

…though he _was_ substituting for Hunk.

Lance slumped, wondering what would be in store for him.

* * *

To Lance, kissing was a sacred act, something to be shared with someone _special_ whether it was the first or not, rather than something that was a different culture’s equivalent of a handshake.

(Though apparently _their_ equivalent of a kiss _was_ a handshake, so perhaps that could be forgiven.)

It felt like cheating though, and Lance was still low enough in his Kiss Count that he could count all of them on one hand – not that he’d ever admit that aloud. Which was why he made an effort not to even come _close_ to enjoying kissing strangers – humanoid aliens with glittery pale pink skin, three pairs of arms of varying strengths (one could tell which pair they favored from which pair had the most bulk), and ears that weren’t pointed so much as _jagged_ , though according to Allura, the jagged-ness was body modification, like ear piercings.

_This doesn’t count,_ he thought the first time he had to pucker up.

(At least it wasn’t _unpleasant_ …just really, _really_ uncomfortable.)

_It wouldn’t count if I had to kiss my worst enemy either,_ Lance considered after the second.

Who _was_ his worst enemy? It wasn’t Zarkon, because that just wasn’t personal enough; he’d never even seen him in the…flesh or whatever it was zombies had wrapping their bones.

It wasn’t Keith – _enemy_ didn’t equal _rival_ – and besides, he could stand to pick someone who wasn’t at least _remotely_ decent-looking and that he could grudgingly admit to being friends with.

“Lotor,” he muttered under his breath. For the third Besayan, he pretended he was kissing Lotor, and it suitably disgusted him to the point that he almost recoiled.

_Bingo,_ he thought.

None of the rest counted, none of the rest had any meaning attached to them. In fact, Lance couldn’t even remember the names of over half the diplomats Allura met with – and there were only six.

Mission(s) accomplished.

* * *

“So how’d it go?” Hunk asked when Lance went by his bedroom to see if he needed anything while he convalesced.

“Boring,” Lance complained. “Also they were all old.”

Hunk rolled his eyes. “That’s usually how it goes, Lance,” he said. “Allura and Prince Lotor are the weird young ones.” Then he frowned. “Actually, I’m not too sure about Lotor. He might be older than he looks…and alien biology is weird.”

Lance raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, that’s the weird thing about him.”

“And you were fine kissing random old aliens?” Hunk smirked and started to wax poetic, “Oh, I remember when you had your first kiss and you wouldn’t shut up about it—”

“You can shut up about it now,” Lance said, glowering at him. “We don’t talk about that.”

“So then how was your second kiss?”

Lance said, “You have one more chance before I leave you to wallow in your own snot.”

“That’s gross,” Hunk complained.

Lance gestured towards the wastebasket full of used tissues at his bedside. “You would know!”

“Did you have to pucker up?”

Lance marched for the door, which slid open for him, and with one foot out he looked over his shoulder at Hunk and said, “Two things: I hope you feel better soon, and I also hope you realize that me leaving you alone now is all your fault.”

“Worth it,” Hunk said with a smirk.

Outside, Lance stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and whistled as he meandered down the hall. Maybe he would find Coran and ask to be put to work – _ha!_ – or he would go bother Pidge or convince Keith to spar with him or—

He spotted Lotor walking in the opposite direction, towards _him_ , and for a heartbeat Lance considered dodging into an unoccupied room along this hallway. But Lotor spotted him first and approached.

“And how was the meeting today?” he wondered, crossing his arms. For some reason, arms crossed didn’t look as closed off on Lotor as they did on anyone else, though it might’ve been the disarming smile he wore.

Lance didn’t trust it for a tic.

“Great,” Lance said, “except for one small thing.”

“Hmm, I see?”

“I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Lotor narrowed his eyes at him. “And what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lance glared at him. “I wanted to detach myself from it so much that I pretended I was kissing someone I hated.” He crossed his arms and smirked up at Lotor. “What do you think of _that_?”

“That it’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” Lotor said.

Lance shrugged and said, “It’s all right if you don’t understand it. We can’t all be as savvy as me.”

“No, that we can’t.”

Lance squinted at him. “You’re making fun of me?”

“Absolutely not,” Lotor said, rolling his eyes. He then stepped past Lance and proceeded in the direction he’d been heading without another word.

Lance watched him go for a tic, shrugged, and went off in search of someone else to bother, preferably someone he would _not_ mind kissing.


End file.
